Federal-Style 140 Bowery for Sale

With 35 Cooper Square hanging by the proverbial thread, many in the neighborhood remain worried about the fate of other Federal-style buildings along the Bowery.  Like 206 Bowery, which is still kicking around the Landmarks Preservation Commission machine.  Fears are continually stoked due to the constant threat of gentrification and its trusty demolition sidekick.  And now another historic structure could be next.

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Boogie reader Mose submitted a comment yesterday regarding 140 Bowery, currently the home of Lighting Library on the ground level.  The property is listed on Showcase.com, but does not include sale price; Streeteasy has no information.  We decided to publish the response in its entirety:

The federal was america’s first architectural style. There are only 2 early style mostly unaltered federal buildings on the Bowery, 35 cooper square and 140 bowery. While there are only a hand full of federal buildings left in the city, just a few of them are this early squat 2 1/2 story type. It is essential to distinguish the difference between these and the taller elegant federal homes that lined lower Broadway when George Washington was sworn in as our first president a few blocks away. These early modest federal houses were commonly occupied by a tradesman who kept a shop on the street level and lived on the 2nd floor. The dormered attic often housed the tradesman’s apprentice, domestic servants or boarders. These were the homes of New York’s early working class families. The men, women and children of the industrial revolution who literally built this city with their hands.

But nothing remarkable enough to have been recorded by history happened here for its first 150 years that we know of. A future president was not born in this house. The institutions which have the power to grant a stay of execution are not impressed by its pedigree (was not built by the RIGHT Stuyvesant), nor its performance (170 years of common New Yorkers living their common lives). Robert Tierney has judged 35 cooper an underachiever in a city of power brokers, and slackers are not welcome in new New York..

If 35 cooper square is razed 140 Bowery will be the last one.